


the place with all the little lights

by doctorAlexander



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 12:08:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12276177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorAlexander/pseuds/doctorAlexander
Summary: She had those dirty, paling eyes.





	the place with all the little lights

Tearing cleanly through the dirt of the country roads, I roll over and past hill by grassy, sloping hill. Tinny music emanates from the radio strapped to my bike: cheap, worn, and clashing with the greenery that surrounds me. The wind isn't blowing now, and I'm left with the feeling that it isn't right, that it ought to be.

  
Both the sky and the Earth open into vast, uninterrupted expanses of that same summer palette; green to yellow to green, a hundred yellows meet a hundred greens; light and color fraternize on the leaves, dancing and combining into a shining portrait of the summer. I look to my left and stare out onto an unending field of something crisp and low to the ground, like a pattern painted on the soil. The sky to my back is a clear and uncompromising blue, filling the scene with light that seems unearned looking ahead. The shifting gray skies before me contrast with the ground and make the setting sharp in a dissatisfying way.

  
The music stops and is replaced by static. I shut it off, fumbling with the dials, but the sound keeps ringing in my ears. When I return my gaze to the road, I glimpse something ahead that catches my eye: something glittering among the dour greens. I speed past my leisurely pace, disrupting the illusion of tranquility and raising the first wind of the day. The trees move differently at this speed: shifting and bobbing like fluid, impermanent and unsubstantial. I see the light more clearly now, and can make out its angular shape. Swashes of growth cover it at random, making every pane its own abstract painting; my eyes are drawn to it. It seems out of place, unnatural in a fundamental sense.

  
As I get closer to the structure, I note its unusual design. The sides and details are wrought-iron, painted white but chipping in an earnest way, and the glass is clear but gives a warped, swirling view of the interior— almost like it isn't really meant to be beautiful, only obscuring. Vines cover the panes, rolling over them like sand, or like the ocean; they're overgrown and seem powerful, crawling between the gaps in a desperate coup d'état. They're everywhere vines can get, and I can't tell if they're holding it all together or tearing it apart. The grass surrounding the greenhouse is tangled and thickly layered: a sea of green that seems more like a bed than a lawn. Suddenly, I feel tired. I want to sleep here, right here in the grass. My better sense grabs hold of me, however, and I find myself lifting the iron hatch of the entrance.

  
The wind blows behind me, and between strands of hair I glimpse a place unlike any I'd seen before.

  
It's a greenhouse, but not in the way greenhouses tend to be. The interior isn't a garden, or a dwelling, or a farm. It's a jungle of life, a man-made structure reclaimed by the Earth. It's the plants that know the way-abouts, really; they curve and wrap around the others; they open and spring out from places hidden; they have their own vendettas, their own little orange grains to spread around the room. On the windowsill above a table full of rusting tools, things I don't know the name of bloom into each other. Petals, consumed by the needs of the roots, fall to the floor with an implacable sadness, and I follow them with my eyes. They touch the ground, and so do I. There's someone lying there, half buried in the petals, sprawled out like a root system digging into the Earth.  
Her eyes are closed, and her skin is very pale. I worry that she isn't alive... oh, but her chest is rising. What a peculiar place to sleep. I hope she's comfortable.  
It seems rude to disturb her. I wonder if I should or shouldn't.

  
Her chest is rising and falling rhythmically, and I find myself watching with trepidation. She looks so vulnerable and alone, and the skin around her eyes must be very delicate. I can't help but wonder what she's doing here, sleeping on a bed of petals. The way her slick, pale hair curls with every movement is a phenomenon I can't seem to ignore; my gaze won't move from her. She's hypnotizing, it all is. All of her, the mystery of her. The petals are being crushed beneath her, I just realized this.

  
Her sticky eyelids open, her hair draping over them like blinds. Her irises are pale, like her hair, like her skin; pale to the point of fragility. That's what I'm caught on, really— how vulnerable she looks, lying there. It seems unsafe. The world is unsafe for girls lying sleepy in greenhouses. I can't see any recognition of this reflected in the person before me, however. Yet her eyes are moving, they register me, the person before her. As though reading, they take me in line by line. I can't even make sense of my internal monologue, but I manage to stutter a greeting. Something like “hello” or “nice weather”, not anything I really mean to say like “why are you here” or “what has happened to make this”.

  
She doesn't respond to my approach. She doesn't even look like she'll respond— her eyes are closing again. There are so many things I don't understand: what is this little living place on a road no one travels, and why is she lying in the sun, in a house made of glass and leaves. She's staring, still, but I can't follow her gaze. I can't see what she's so fixated on.

  
“Can I join you?”

  
Words break the silence, and they're mine. I pause, considering what escaped my lips. I don't think I said that; I don't know where that came from. But the pale curls are shifting and her head is turning my way. A part of her is fidgeting, I think to myself. I saw something breathe in her eyes.  
For the first time, she meets my gaze.

  
“Sure.”

  
I lie down beside her, careful not to pin her hair to the floor. But the petals crunch beneath me, and from their sounds I realize they've long since died. Their colors are faded and their dust clings to my clothes. Not wanting to stare, I'm forced to look upwards. The sky is warped through the glass beyond recognition, and this alien sun is so punishing. It weighs heavily and brightly, and somewhere, it frightens me. The light swirls above in a threatening dance I feel powerless to stop. I lie here, acutely aware of the rotation of the Earth. I'm trapped inside its crust, pinned to the edge by centripetal force, spinning until something chooses to stop. The pressure mounting on my chest grows until a part of me is pleading for the stillness, the time when it all gives and cracks and drops to the bottom.

  
The girl coughs beside me, and I realize my eyes are stinging. I turn and see her own, wide and staring, dirtied and stagnant. A kind of faded yellow. Looking into them makes me uncomfortable, so I move down to her mouth. Her lips are chapped and they begin to address me.

  
“Why are you here?” She asks, mouthing along to the voice of someone older. It's an inquiry, but her tone is void in a way I can't really describe.

  
“The door was open.” I respond. She doesn't look satisfied.

  
“That can't be right,” She pauses. “And your clothes are getting dirty.”

  
I smile a bit in her direction, and she looks at me queerly.

  
“That's alright.”

  
With the last comment, we fall into silence. The greenhouse darkens slightly as the cloud cover drifts in. Several minutes pass until I'm compelled to speak. I brush a shriveling leaf from her shoulder, and she looks at me with an expression more pained than anything.

  
“Why are you doing this?” I ask her.

  
Oh, there is it. That fidgeting. Her pupils relax from their hard lines, and for just a second they turn to me before darting away. They stare up, retreating into themselves as though burned by the hidden sun. I can see the side of her face and her mouth, closed in a silent prayer.

  
“I don't want any of it,” She murmurs.

  
“I don't want to learn any more about such an ugly world.”

  
She doesn't turn. I'm not sure how to respond. Another petal falls and lands in her hair, but she makes no effort to grasp it. I wrestle with the thought of getting it for her.

  
I decide against it.

  
“That's a hefty accusation.” I begin hesitantly. “What's so bad about it all?”

  
A pause.

  
“It's too bright.”

  
Silence creeps up on us again, and I can hear the leaves shuffling in the wind, scratching against the glass. I try vaguely to make sense of what this girl is saying, but I can't. It's all too airy. I'd given up the instant I walked into this place.

  
“I don't know what you mean.”

  
The words taste cruel as they leave my lips. Their bitterness stays with me, like I've drawn something in the sand. I remember the force on my chest, the burning in my eyes. She licks her lips, like she isn't finished speaking.

  
“The summer is hot. Nothing's preserved. When things decay, I smell them.”

  
“I want it all to burn away.”

  
I don't turn my head to look at her. This part, I know better than to see.

  
“Or else, I want to leave.” She continues.

  
Light and shadow shift through the greenhouse as the sun emerges once more. I sit up without warning, stirring the dry flowers beneath me.

  
Getting to my feet, I take a tentative step to the door. She's still lying there, staring at the light grotesquely mirrored through the glass. Or perhaps something behind it. I don't know; I can't make myself look at her anymore. I can't stare into her dead, paling eyes. I walk away, leaves crunching under my feet until I arrive at the door to the sanctuary. The girl stays motionless as I reach out to turn the ornately carved handle, an act that feels sacred, yet base.

  
I step out into the afternoon sun, closing the gate with a sure metal click. I hear something behind me— a quiet song that could be weeping— but I leave it to the vines as I traverse the stones and ivy away from this place. My bicycle still leans against the woven grass, but I put it aright and dust it off and continue along the way.

 

The unsettling light from before has not changed, but in a way it seems different: patient, more menacing. It feels omnipresent. I try not to look up as I ride down the road before me, watching the scene bob and fade, listening to the radio at my side: cheap and worn, silent as death.


End file.
